New U2 Album – News!

Here’s the latest on the upcoming U2 album (posted in the news update window at Relevant)…

Bono said Thursday that U2′s long-awaited follow-up to All That You Can’t Leave Behind will be completed by the end of the summer, MTV reports. Referring to the still-untitled LP as the band’s “first rock record,” Bono also said that he expects the first single to hit the airwaves in September, followed by the album’s release one month later. The U2 frontman made the revelations during an appearance on CNN Live Today, where he discussed Canada’s $50 million contribution to his global campaign to fight HIV/AIDS and his upcoming efforts to increase awareness of the disease amongst voters in the United States.

Jeffrey Overstreet has two passions: writing fiction, and celebrating art — music, cinema, photography, literature — through writing and teaching. He is the author of a “memoir of dangerous moviegoing” — Through a Screen Darkly. And his four-novel fantasy series, The Auralia Thread, which begins with Auralia's Colors, was published by Random House. He speaks at universities and conferences around the world about understanding art through eyes of faith. He is earning his MFA in Creative Writing at Seattle Pacific University, where he has worked for 11 years as an editor, writer, and communications project manager. His work has been recognized in The New Yorker, TIME, The Seattle Times, IMAGE, Ravi Zacharias International — and Christianity Today, where he served as a film journalist for more than a decade. He recently began a weekly column called "Listening Closer" for Christ and Pop Culture.

chris

i like the trilogy theory concerning u2′s catalogue. similar styles/themes/etc in each trilogy. obviously this is all a generalization, but i think it makes sense..

By “unremarkable” I mean that U2 has done the group-black-and-white-photo pose so many times now that it’s become one of their biggest cliches. And yet, some of their covers have been so surprising as to inspire copycats for the next decade (Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby). You’d think that the world’s great graphic designers and artists would be clamoring to offer a new vision, a new idea. This cover could have been put together by anybody with Photoshop and a camera. In fact, when it first popped up on the Web, I heard several people crying ‘Fake!’

I feel the same way about U2′s music. Most people celebrate U2 whenever they do something that sounds like the old days. For me, one of the most exciting things about U2 has been a “sonic restlessness,” a refusal to “settle” into any particular sound and a tendency to lean forward into something new with each outing. ATYCLB’s sound… and cover… were primarily nostalgic; it was a way of saying “We can still knock the roof off an arena with that classic U2 anthem sound.”

I haven’t heard the new album yet–I won’t until release day, as is my U2 ritual. But I’m worried … especially from the rave reviews coming in … that this may be the first U2 album in which they merely repeat themselves, in which the U2 sound finally solidifies into a “brand.” I’m worried that the journey … at least the stylistic journey … is over and that they’ve become content with a particular sound. That may make them happy, and it’ll certainly please those who disliked their ’90s albums (I was one of the few who loved them).

But I will feel a great sense of loss if that’s true. So few bands are pushing us in exciting new directions right now, and I could always count on U2 to take me somewhere unexplored, vast, and … if you will … where the streets have no name. I’ll probably still be pleased by WHATEVER they put out, but I’m longing to be launched into new territory. R.E.M.’s new album was the most catastrophic collapse I’ve heard in ages, lacking ideas, energy, excellence, passion, and soul. I’m hoping U2 remind us all what’s possible, as they’ve done so many times before.

Anonymous

The most unremarkable cover in the band’s history?

Oh, come now, Jeffrey… have you forgotten the cover of October? Or how about the American version of Boy?

The Times’ praise for the album is a little extreme, but I agree that it’s a great record, and definitely one of the better U2 sets.

Jeffrey Overstreet

"Jeffrey is ... one of my favorite film critics. He writes with great lucidity and compassion about all sorts of movies, from all sorts of angles, but what I value most about his work is the theological-moral perspective he takes on things. He’s not a dogmatic scold, sifting through popular art looking for work that fits a rigid world view; he’s more interested in Looking Closer ... to discover what, if anything, the work is saying."

Follow Looking Closer!

Put Your Name in the Credits – Donate to Looking Closer

Jeffrey Overstreet has been volunteering his reviews and commentary on arts, faith, and culture for more than 15 years, working other jobs to keep this blog alive. As life gets busier, this becomes more challenging. Your support enables Looking Closer to continue. A donation says, "I appreciate what I read here. Thanks, Jeffrey." And it puts your name in the Credits.

Through a Screen Darkly

Jeffrey Overstreet's Through a Screen Darkly is a memoir of "dangerous moviegoing," which has become a popular university textbook on film, faith, and cultural engagement, and which earned praise from readers like Eugene Peterson, Gregory Wolfe, Scott Derrickson, Darren Aronofsky, and Dick Staub. Publisher's Weekly awarded it a "Starred Review."